


a song from beyond the grave

by philosophymajorcarmilla



Category: Dreamcatcher (Korea Band)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Ghosts, Halloween, Magic, One Shot, Witches, but not really?, coven of witches turned punk rock band
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27291763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philosophymajorcarmilla/pseuds/philosophymajorcarmilla
Summary: kim bora was looking through the old dusty boxes in the attic when she found a vinyl record with a song recorded and released after the singer's death, and the soul of the girl trapped inside.
Relationships: Kim Bora | SuA/Lee Siyeon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	a song from beyond the grave

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this work was inspired by a halloween lo-fi mix, and i could not get siyeon as a ghost singer out of my head. I'm sorry if it feels rushed, i really wanted to get this out on halloween. 
> 
> please enjoy this mess!

on the day of halloween, when the leaves already coated the pathways with fragrant yellows, deep oranges, and vibrant reds, the air had a mystic feeling to it. the day was dim, the sun laying a faded glow over everything, and fog was lurking near the edges of vision.  
  
  
  
in a creaky old house near the end of the street stood a woman. she had just barely moved in, still looking through the things left by the old owners, a soft tune playing in the background as she was humming the lyrics to herself. the girl looked around, proud of what she made of the dusty old house in the week she was there, even though she still had more to do. the warm atmosphere of the house is what made her buy it, even if all the people advised her against it, saying it was haunted. bora didn't believe in that, though. yes, the house might be very old, creaking at every corner, and the exterior with its black, worn wood might look a bit too gothic for her taste but she figured it brought some personality to the place.  
  
  
  
as she looked around the house, she saw a trapdoor hidden in the corner of a hallway ceiling. that reminded her of the elderly couple that lived there before, who told her that the house also had an attic. making her way over the soft carpet, she tested the structural integrity of the old ladder. the creaks and groans it released didn't assure bora in the slightest, but at least it didn't seem to break.  
  
  
  
the girl slowly made her way up the steps, the ladder screeching in protest. as she reached the top, she balanced herself on a step and pushed the old trapdoor with all her might, but it didn’t even budge. after a few more tries the door opened with a groan, a thick cloud of dust moving down from the attic. coughing, bora made her way up with a hand over her mouth and nose to shield herself from even more grime.  
  
  
  
she entered the shabby attic, and bora felt like she stepped into another universe. the faded glow of the sun poured with difficulty through the dirty window, the dust in the air dancing softly in the golden glow. the girl looked around, mesmerized. her reverie was interrupted, however, by a box that was illuminated perfectly by the light. in the sea of rotten chests and closets full of cobwebs, the perfectly intact box stuck out like a sore thumb. bora ran a finger along the top of it, surprised when she saw there wasn't even any dust on it.  
  
  
  
intrigued she tried to peek inside it, but something stopped her. with a sigh she picked up the box and took it down, extra careful on the ladder. bora put the box in the middle of her living room. now, looking at it in a literal new light, she saw that on the side of it there was something written in a very beautiful and old cursive script. it simply said _insomnia._  
  
  
  
when she finally opened the box, a whispery sigh was heard. bora looked around confused. _did she imagine that?_ the girl decided that the most plausible explanation was that somehow there was a pressure difference and that's what made the sound. _yeah, surely that was it. there's no way it could have been anything else._  
  
  
  
in the box there were multiple decaying vinyl records, in contrast to the pristine condition of the box. as she looked more inside the box she saw one vinyl that was in perfect condition. it had a plain, blood-red cover with a finely drawn stylized dreamcatcher in the middle.  
  
  
  
the record seemed to call to her, somehow. she picked it up, looking one more time at the contents of the box. bora noticed that all the other records had some sort of dreamcatcher drawn on top of them. _the albums of a band, maybe? insomnia? that was written on the box, so it would make sense._  
  
  
  
with the vinyl in her hand, she sat down on the floor near her vinyl record player. she turned the record around to see the tracklist but there was only one song. _paradise._ underneath that, it said that it was a solo by the main vocalist of the band, first performed by the artist in 1991. that girl, lee siyeon, was the only person credited on the record.  
  
  
  
excited to give it a listen, she put the vinyl in the old record player that she found in the house. bora held her breath, hoping it still worked. as she waited for the song to start, she quickly googled more info about the band, and specifically their main vocalist.  
  
  
  
_lee was siyeon the main vocalist of the now-disbanded punk-rock band insomnia. it was presumed she died on the 31st of october, 1989, in a tragic and still unexplained accident, but her body was never recovered. after that, the group decided to disband, never releasing another song under that name_.  
  
  
  
bora looked incredulously at her phone. _wait, died in 1989? it said on the cover that she performed the song in 1991. how could this be?_ but just before she could question it any further, a low and rumbling piano note was heard from the old turntable.  
  
  
  
the girl completely froze, her breath catching in her throat. a whispery voice that echoed in her head and sent a chill down the very marrow of her spine came through the speakers a few seconds later. in that moment, bora knew she had no choice but to listen, enthralled.  
  
  
  
_some place where you can breathe_  
  
  
  
bora crawled closer to the soft sound of the recorded voice, the feathery melody lingering on wisps of smoke from candles, lulling the girl into a trance.  
  
  
  
_where would it be, a place without painful tears_  
  
  
  
the honeyed voice beckoned bora to close her eyes and surrender herself to the spell the melody was casting over her. she obliged.  
  
  
  
_nobody, nobody knows_  
  
  
  
the disembodied voice of the singer was the only thing the girl could hear, the only thing she could think of, could focus on. nothing else existed in that moment, and bora was made to feel everything the whispery vocalist was feeling.  
  
  
  
_close your eyes, at the end of one’s remembrance_  
  
  
  
for a while, she just got lost in the music. as the first verse came to an end and the chorus began, bora frowned. the hypnotic voice became a bit louder, bitter resentment seeping into the sound and breaking the spell. the girl realized that only the vocals remained, no instruments accompanying them.  
  
  
  
_run away to a place where you can breathe, run away to a place without painful tears_  
  
  
  
she slowly opened her eyes, the mellifluous voice trying to subdue her again, but she refused. as she regained her bearings, the singer felt closer to her, like she was whispering in bora’s ear. she looked at the turntable, ready to stop the music but a chill ran down the length of her spine the moment she realized the record wasn’t actually spinning anymore.  
  
  
  
_broken heart, as time passes, close your eyes, in front of your increasingly cloudy eyes_  
  
  
  
bora’s own heart began beating erratically in her chest, trying its best to get away from her.  
  
  
  
_paradise_  
  
  
  
the girl slowly turned around, trying to locate the owner of the voice. her mind was going a mile a minute running through all the possible scenarios.  
  
  
  
_paradise._  
  
  
  
as she turned, the melody died down completely. looking at the space behind her, on a spot of the floor a meter behind her that was previously unoccupied sat an ethereal girl. bora's eyes widened at the stranger sitting cross-legged in front of her. she looked at the unbothered girl, ready to tell her to get the hell out of her house, but something was off about her.  
  
  
  
staring for a couple more seconds, she realized that the air around the girl seemed to flicker and blur violently, colors from another world trying to seep into hers, and a soft gasp left bora's mouth. the girl on the other side of the room raised an eyebrow, finding the reaction amusing. "hey." she simply said.  
  
  
  
bora's mouth opened and closed a few times uselessly. "i- you... you're-" she tried, but she couldn't manage to form any coherent sentence. the intruder's eyes sparkled with mirth, the ghost of a smile on the girl's lips. "i'm lee siyeon, if that is what you were trying to say."

bora felt offended. “that much i could tell. but aren’t you supposed to be dead?” she started waving her phone around. “it says right here that you died in 1989.”

siyeon was caught off guard by that. “yes, i supposed that is true to some extent.” she studied the girl in front of her, and she decided that an explanation wouldn’t hurt. "you see, i didn't really _die_ , per se, it more like my soul got absorbed in some recording equipment after one of my bandmates' spells backfired." the vocalist shrugged, like it was the most common thing to say.

bora started to question her sanity. _this couldn't be happening. first a weird record, then a girl that came out of said record, then finally this girl's insane story? maybe she was just a crazy girl that managed to break into her house._ bora looked closer at the girl, at lee siyeon, who seemed to find picking at her nail polish the most interesting thing ever.

her attention got drawn to the fact that reality no longer seemed _that_ warped near the outline of the girl. it was like this plane of existence was finally accepting her back in. _she really was starting to go crazy if she even entertained that thought_. as she looked more trying to come up with any explanation for the strange situation in front of her a question popped into her mind.

"then, if you didn't die, but didn't really exist either, how did you record that solo?"

that caught siyeon's attention, her eyebrows shooting up. "well aren't you perceptive." that definitely annoyed bora, mostly because she found the other infuriatingly hot. "could you stop for, like two seconds with the condescending behavior? say i believe this preposterous story of yours, i'm still trying to wrap my head around what you said."

"look, you don't have to believe me. but believe when i say i don't have even the foggiest idea as to how you got me out of there. my bandmates tried for two whole years to get me out of the recording equipment. and when they finally did, i was out for barely a week, managing to record the solo on that very vinyl before i got sucked back into whatever that other place was." she visibly shuddered and her face darkened at the thought of that place.

at that, bora softened. _if she really is telling the truth, what did she go through in that other place to elicit such a reaction from her?_ she didn’t voice the question, however, her concern was written on her face. she looked at siyeon once again, the girl seeming more and more corporeal with each moment that passed. that gave her an idea.

quickly, bora jumped from where she was sitting on the floor, her fist clenched and aimed for the other girl’s shoulder. siyeon’s eyes widened in understanding and fright the second she saw bora’s actions. the girl’s fist connected _hard_ with the vocalist’s shoulder, the latter letting out a yelp of pain, followed by a string of obscenities directed at the smaller woman. unfortunately, bora miscalculated, thinking she was going to pass through the other since she was supposedly some kind of spirit, and landed halfway on top of her, sending both of them to the floor, siyeon pinned down by bora’s body.

it took a couple of seconds to realize the position they were in and both of them promptly blushed, siyeon pushing the other away from her. “why the hell did you do that for, you idiot?” she snarled, hoping to hide her flustered state. her shoulder was definitely going to bruise later, though.

bora hid her face in embarrassment. “i wanted to see if you were actually a ghost or not...” she replied shyly. siyeon, however, could not believe what she was hearing. “and you _had_ to punch me? couldn’t you have, like, asked me, or something?”

hearing that, the girl’s blush deepened. “i didn’t think, okay? i just had this idea and acted on it.” she frowned and looked down. “sorry,” she added quietly. at the sight, the vocalist just laughed, loud and clear. bora got startled by the sound, but then immediately decided it was her favorite sound. she wanted to hear the other girl laugh more, even if it was at her expense. the movement jolted siyeon and reminded her of the blooming bruise on the frail skin covering her shoulder and she whimpered in pain again.

that sobered bora out of her thoughts, instantly at the other’s side to fuss over her wound. siyeon moved away slightly, scared by the sudden movement from the very intense girl. bora raised her hands as she would with a frightened animal. “please let me help you since i was the one to hurt you.” she said sadly.

when siyeon reluctantly agreed, the other girl went to get some ice out of her freezer, hoping to numb the pain the vocalist was feeling. siyeon pulled the neck of her t-shirt slightly down, allowing access for bora to put the icepack on the bruise.

bora looked the wound over for a few more seconds, then she raised her head up, startled to find the other’s face mere centimeters apart from hers. once again, deep blushes colored their faces, but before bora could move away, she thought she saw siyeon looking down at her lips. however, it lasted only a moment.

after that incident, they talked some more, minutes turning into hours, just enjoying each other’s company. bora talked about her life as a dancer and choreographer, and siyeon talked about her band, how the six of them were initially a coven of witches and how they decided to start a punk band as a front. the girl spoke of them with such fondness it made bora want to meet them, but then she realized this all happened over 30 years ago, there’s no way siyeon could find her members again. bora, however, made a mental note to do a bit of research about the insomnia members when she got the chance before broaching the subject to the vocalist.

they continued talked until the night of halloween came closer and closer to an end. when siyeon yawned, bora looked at her phone. **_01:13 am, november 1st_** _._ “maybe we should go to sleep” bora suggested, and siyeon sleepily nodded. they got up and slowly made their way to the second floor of the house where bora’s bedroom and the spare rooms were.

when they were face to face with the doors to the bedrooms, bora realized that all of the spare rooms were practically empty, save for the boxes in which everything was stored. she looked at siyeon, who was halfway to falling asleep on her shoulder, and decided that she would let the sleepy girl take her bed, while she slept on the couch. _they’d have to figure their sleeping arrangements sooner or later, though._ she took another look at the sleepy girl and decided that it was a conversation she best saved for tomorrow.

after she plopped siyeon on her bed, she went to look for some sleeping clothes she could lend the girl. returning victorious with an oversized t-shirt and some shorts, she handed them to siyeon. in her sleep clouded brain, the vocalist couldn’t even be bothered to change in another room. faced with the half-naked siyeon, bora yelped and turned around quickly.

after she was done, siyeon crawled into bed. bora mumbled a quick “good night” and turned off the main lights, the fairy lights at the head of her bed the only thing illuminating the room. when she opened the door, siyeon softly called out to her and bora turned around. the vocalist was lifting the blanket, a clear invitation to sleep in the same bed. bora did have to admit she was too tired to actually get the stuff to sleep on the couch, so she decided easily what she was going to do.

she slipped under the soft blankets, keeping a respectful distance from the other girl, and turned off the fairy lights, allowing the pale full moon to bathe the room in a soft ethereal glow.

when morning came, bora panicked as she woke up to a presence cuddled up to her but relaxed instantly when she realized who it was. siyeon was so soft, almost like a teddy bear. regretfully, bora got out of bed, preparing to face the new day.

* * *

a few days passed like that, bora getting more desperate with her searches. she saw the longing look on siyeon’s face every day, thinking about her members and she couldn’t take it anymore. plus, she really wanted to meet them after all the amazing stories the vocalist told her of the band. siyeon even promised bora she could join their band when she found out she could sing. actually, looking back on it, she didn’t really have much of a choice in joining the band if they did end up finding the members, but it’s not like bora could actually ever refuse the other girl.

one fateful morning, as she waited for the other girl to wake up, bora looked more into the other members of insomnia, using the names and aliases they might use that siyeon thankfully gave her the night before. she searched the internet for any evidence of their presence and when she finally got something she started jumping up and down in her kitchen. that was what siyeon walked on, bewilderment written clearly on her face. as bora realized she was watched, she blushed but she excitedly told siyeon what she had found after days of fruitless searching.

“look, look! i managed to find your members! they didn’t age, just like you told me they wouldn’t!” she practically yelled in the (barely awake) girl’s face. when siyeon grasped what was happening, all traces of sleep were gone from her features, joining bora in her excitement, their cheers growing louder as soon as they realized the girls were actually living in the same town as them.

bora messaged them, hoping that the picture of siyeon’s solo record and a request to meet up was enough to get them interested. and interested they were. the girls replied almost instantly with a request to meet in a couple of hours.

when siyeon saw the messages, skimming over the lines, she started tearing up from happiness. she was finally going to see her members. in person. after 30 years. she couldn’t believe it. she tried to keep watch over them in the first 10 years or so, but it expended so much of her energy that she quickly gave up. now, somehow, she had her physical body back, thanks to bora. as she thought of the woman, her eyes naturally gravitated towards her. the pure joy on bora’s face at the thought of siyeon reuniting with her members after so much time was making siyeon feel so many things for the smaller woman. the vocalist jumped in bora’s arms, whispering her gratitude over and over, thinking how she could never repay the woman.

as they pulled back from the hug, they looked at each other with unbridled affection. their eyes kept darting lower, to each other’s lips, as they got closer and closer with each breath. siyeon couldn’t take the tension any longer and pulled delicately the small woman towards her to finally close the gap. the kiss was slow and gentle, reveling in the joy of finding the long-lost members, but especially in the joy of finding each other.

both siyeon and bora had dumb smiles on their faces as they broke apart, thinking how lucky they got with each other.

* * *

“s-siyeon? is that really you?” a quivering voice said.

bora and siyeon turned towards the sound and, at the entrance of the little coffee shop they picked, they saw five girls frozen in disbelief.

“oh my god, singnie, i can’t actually believe you’re alive,” said the first one as soon as she got over her shock. siyeon smirked. “thought you were getting rid of me that easily, yooh? i told you i’d never leave you guys and even after 30 years i’ve managed to return.”

with that, the five girls came running and jumped on siyeon to hug her and pester her with questions. bora just stood silently, happy to watch them interact. she was startled out of her thoughts, however, when siyeon reached out to hold her hand, a soft smile playing on her lips as she looked at her with adoration.

“if you guys don’t mind,” siyeon started to say, shyly, “i think i’ve found us a seventh member.”

as soon as siyeon finished saying that, all the members switched their attention to the small woman, and was given the same treatment of hugs and questions as siyeon received.

at the end of the evening, when bora quietly asked minji why they welcomed her so fast into their little family, the girl softly said “siyeon must trust you a great deal to extend that invitation to you. i suggest you don’t waste the chance.”

and bora didn’t.

a little under a year later, on the night of halloween, in front of a packed audience, there stood seven girls.

“dream of us, we’re dreamcatcher” was all they needed to say before the crowd went wild.


End file.
